


tinker tailor soldier sailor rich man poor man beggar man thief

by somethingdifferent



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8874640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: He's been coming here for thirty years, and nothing ever changes. He's been coming here for thirty years, and she never changes.
[william/dolores]





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have a soft spot for Jimmi Simpson so this happened don't hate me I know the man in black is terrible but WILLIAM!!!!
> 
> All titles taken from Radiohead bc this show has an abundance of Radiohead.

_ i'm not here. this isn't happening._

Somewhere in his mind, in his earliest memories, he knew and remembered the difference between them. Between the natural and the manmade - that one will grow, and will need things to survive, and will, eventually, die, and that the other will not. That he will, and Dolores will not.

 _Somewhere_ , he thinks, he knew this.

 

 

 

_ you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking._

William spends, and makes, and spends again. His wife (his wife who, he knows, he does not love, who he married for convenience, for the fact that she offered him a life he had always been sure he wanted - none of this is fair to her, of course, but he no longer thinks of himself as a good man, and she is used to being used, by her brother, her father, him) is used to a certain lifestyle, one he can certainly now afford to keep up for her and for their daughter, who even now, when his wife is only pregnant, when his daughter isn't even alive yet, is starting to cost him. Yet every year, every paycheck, every bonus, every investment return, there is money he sets aside for himself. Money for The Park. For Westworld (say it breathlessly - breath caught in throat, hints of awe even after all these years, _Westworld_ ).

( _For Dolores_ , he doesn't let himself think.)

He enjoys it still, The Park, even after the first time. But it's a different enjoyment. Fuller and emptier at once. Fuller because he knows how to enjoy it, and emptier because of everything else.

For thirty years, he spends, makes, spends again, and no one suspects who he is underneath. No one knows, either way, except for Logan, who doesn't even matter and would never tell his own sister what William really is - would never tell her that he made William that way.

William disappears into it, into The Park, into his role therein. The man in black - villain, adversary, winner every time. And then William comes back and disappears into it, into the world, into his role therein. The family man - meek, mild, generous, soft. And no one suspects.

 

 

 

_ before all hell breaks loose,_

His wife was a mathematician, before the suicide. His daughter reminds him of the fact, as if William didn't know. She knows how to measure, she isn't a moron, she would've known how many pills to take.

You monster, his daughter, made of flesh and blood, a real living human and not a host who will forget his face the day after and thereby forget the wrongs he has done, you are a monster and you killed my mother.

 _My mother_ , she says, not _your wife_ \- smart girl, she knows the second wouldn't matter to him.

You think we don't know what you - what you do in _there_ , when no one is looking. When it's just you and those fucking _things_.

You monster, his daughter accuses.

( _Monster_ , Dolores accuses, and William only smiles.)

 

 

_ for a minute there, i lost myself._

You know this already, she tells him once, out of the blue (blue as her dress, blue as her eyes, blue as the sky stretching endlessly, not endlessly, over their heads).

You know you will get older, and weaker, and eventually die. Natural things - they grow and sprout roots and wither and die. This has been your promise, William. This has been your _right_.

You know this already, Dolores says.

The right is mine, too, she says, unknowing.

 

 

_ there is always a siren singing you to shipwreck._

Every time he sees her, it's the exact same thing. You'd think after a while, they might've gotten bored of her storyline, changed up her standard introduction, but no. He's been coming here for thirty years, and nothing ever changes.

He's been coming here for thirty years, and she never changes.

Dolores carries everything in her arms, a can of food teetered precariously in her crooked elbow. Dolores stuffs it into the pack of her horse, unmindful of the can dropping from her grip and falling to the ground, rolling away from her. A young man, any young man, thinking himself polite, picks up the lost item, hands it back to her. Dolores smiles gently, radiantly. She smiles at them with the same tenderness that she did for him, once.

William remembers Logan, remembers you think you're the first one to fall for one of these things?

The idiotic thing is, he did.

Have a nice day, miss, he says to her sometimes, the days he's the first to greet her. The days he allows himself to be softer. Other times it's morning, Dolores, and other times it's please say you remember me.

Once it is I love you, I miss you, goodbye.

Her smile never falters, and she never remembers. And eventually William stops trying.

 

 

 

_ but gravity always wins._

His wife, clinical and calm, teaches their daughter math in the harsh kitchen light when it is too late for her to be awake. William reads history in the living room (no westerns, he's not so obvious) and hears their voices drifting through the hall.

You need to find the number. How do you find it? Solve the equation on both sides. Isolate the x to one side. All of the numbers need to be on the other. How do I do that? Solve for both sides, I just told you. Let me show you on this one. (Their daughter is slower than both William and his wife, and this is a disappointment to both of them.) See? Try it. Isolate the x. Solve for both sides. No, not that. (Their daughter is observant though, and quick to notice anything amiss, even the slightest tensing of his wife's shoulders when William brushes her cheek.) Like this. Almost. Isolate the x. If you see something that looks like this it means isolate and solve. Wow. See? That was a lot better. That was a lot better. Look at that. You just did some algebra. When you see the x, remember what to do.

In the living room, William rereads the same page three times before he shuts the book and turns off the light.

 

 

 

_ want you to notice when i'm not around._

The first trip, Dolores presses her hand against his chest, concentrating. Says I'm trying to find your heartbeat. Sometimes it's hard for me to find my own.

She is radiant (as she always is, he soon discovers, as she is every year, even when he gets older and weaker and colder), radiant in her happiness and her sadness and her beauty and her everything.

Sometimes, she says, it feels like what I'm doing isn't real. Like I'm just going through the motions.

(Later William will say to Logan, in the dark, they aren't supposed to think like that, are they? They aren't supposed to be philosophical. William will say this and Logan will laugh at him for reading too much into things. They don't think a damn thing that isn't fucking programmed, Billy.)

Do you ever feel like that, William? she asks him. It can't just be me.

William smiles, says, it isn't just you, and still it feels suspiciously like he is taking the easy way out. It isn't just you, Dolores.

 

 

 

_ we're too young to fall asleep._

He can't feel his arm. She broke it hours earlier, and he holds it away from himself gingerly, careful not to jostle it too much. He should see a doctor, he thinks vaguely. He should call one of the medics on staff. He should call his daughter.

He doesn't do any of these things.

He enjoys it, sickeningly enough, the pain of it, the numbness. He enjoys thinking about the fight with Dolores - she was the most alive she'd been in the thirty years he'd been coming to The Park, the most beautiful. The most inhuman. Her hands around his neck, harsh breathing in his ear. After thirty years, she remembered him, remembered his name, said she loved him. Dolores, thirty years late and a dollar short. It would be funny if it could be.

He doesn't care about the girl anymore, has given up on believing the fiction that those things have souls - 3-D printed, semi-alive. _Host_ , with its dual meaning: entertainer and empty vessel. Dolores the entertainer trying to make them forget Dolores the empty vessel.

I wish you could be alive, he'd said thirty years ago, thirty years younger and thirty years more naive. I wish you could.

Why would you wish such a silly thing, William? she asked, brows knitted together in confusion.

(He hears a shot fired, feels a bullet tear through his arm - he smiles.)

_I'm already living, William._

 

 

 

_ don't get sentimental._

There are times, over the years, when he tries to recreate the past. He is only human, after all, and susceptible to error in ways that she is not.

(His heart, despite his best efforts, has not hardened completely - don't look so surprised - even now.)

He manages to succeed, several times, and he lets himself to forget what she is and what he knows. A willing suspension of disbelief. An illusion easily shattered, and so he handles it gently, delicately. He imagines himself growing old here in Westworld, in what she believes is truly the old west. He imagines her growing old with him. He imagines that she is real.

He comes back, year after year, and she never knows him. He is still in love with her, every time, and he makes her fall in love with him, every time. He shouldn't be so surprised, of course.

It's in her programming - to fall in love.

He supposes, in some fucked up sense, it's in his, too.

 

 

 

 

_ don't leave. _

She always looks the same, after all these years. Dolores. She looks up at him with hatred in her eyes, and she has no idea who he is.

As if he expected any different. He knows better, now.

William, she says.

(He remembers the first time he saw her, tipping that damned white hat, thinking that this place wouldn't break him. That he wouldn't be sucked in.

It did. He was. He still is.)

After all these years, she looks the same. It isn't fair.

Dolores, he replies.

 

 


End file.
